Lies, Deception and The Truth

The Hatchet Job on Kennesaw's Gun Law Results

Do you want peace and security? So do the citizens of Kennesaw who passed a law in 1982 encouraging all households to own a gun along with ammunition - but only if they qualify and do not object.

The ordinance encouraging gun ownership has no teeth, you're specifically excluded if you object and no one will ever be prosecuted since there's no penalty. You still need to meet local requirements and receive gun safety training. Although major media reports are frequently biased, it's neither Mandatory Gun Ownership nor Compulsory Gun Ownership, it's simply your choice.

Despite Englander and Snell's deliberate deceit in the gun controllers bible - the supposedly unbiased "Guns in American Society: An Encyclopedia" published in 2002, new edition in 2012, criminals avoid houses where they know the occupants are armed. What's the impact on violent crime when every homeowner has a gun and can use it to defend themselves?

The Kennesaw Gun Law results? Violent Crime Drops by 79%

Once the city of Kennesaw in Georgia passed their ordinance, Kennesaw's violent crime rate had dropped by 79 percent five years later. The decrease has been sustained over the past thirty years! This 79% decrease in crime is far larger than the modest 10% decline experienced by the rest of the USA. [Note that some reports state crime dropped by 89%, a mistake, it actually dropped by 79%.]

This truth is very inconvenient for gun control advocates who pretend that guns are not needed for personal defense - even though politicians' armed guards all carry guns. How did Englander and Snell manage to dismiss the undeniable conclusion - Kennesaw's ordinance encouraging gun ownership was responsible for their reduction in crime? They produced a highly deceptive hatchet job...

Setting the Scene to Deceive You

This "thoroughly updated" second edition of the supposedly unbiased "Guns in American Society: An Encyclopedia" was published in 2012, and the original edition came out in 2002. This raises the question: Why did the authors use obsolete data from 1985 - only 3 short years after the law was passed - rather than the latest numbers covering 20 to 30 years?

Englander and Snell are professional authors, they know to avoid long paragraphs and their first is just five lines long. So why is the second an astonishing 26 lines (sic) - over five times longer? They know how to deliberately mislead, you hide the inconvenient truth - the enormous drop in crime - in the middle of a very long paragraph in a very long sentence which no one will read.

Omissions and Deliberately Misleading Statements

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They pretend that Kennesaw's 79% violent crime reduction "was more likely part of a normal crime fluctuation than a real response to the ordinance." Is this one of the reasons they continue to use data from 1985 although it was "thoroughly updated" in 2012? Yet CityRating reported their violent crime rate in 2012 as tiny. Kennesaw's enormous crime reduction has continued for more than 30 years!.

They (untruthfully) state as though it's highly significant that crime was very low in Kennesaw before the ordinance. But since the 79% drop compares like with like - before and after violent crime rates in Kennesaw itself - this is irrelevant. More misleading reporting.

They deliberately omit the obvious reasons for the Kennesaw law while listing only obscure ones. Yet they know the primary reasons for you to own a gun are: a) to keep you and your loved ones safe from violent criminals, b) to protect your home from burglary and other crimes, and c) to discourage criminals which makes the entire city a safer place.

They say: "In addition, other experts have noted that crime was very low in Kennesaw before the ordinance and that since the entire United States underwent a reduction in crime rates in the mid-1990s, it is at any rate difficult to gauge the long-term consequences of enforced gun ownership." This convoluted sentence is grammatically incorrect while their deceitful conclusion is actually a non-sequitur, it does NOT follow.

Actual Untruths

The actual truth is even more inconvenient - Kennesaw's violent crime rate has dropped 79 percent, compared to the smaller drop they report for the first three years. This decrease is almost twice as large as the obsolete 1985 number they use.

Although they report burglaries declined to 20 percent of its 1981 value, they grudgingly concede that "It is indisputably true that Kennesaw's already low crime rate became somewhat lower." This is deliberate misrepresentation, they pretend an EIGHTY PERCENT drop in crime is just "somewhat lower". This is NOT just somewhat lower, it's a very dramatic decline.

They start out by saying Kennesaw is a "small town." Also not true, Kennesaw is actually a city with a population in excess of 30,000. They know this, one of their quotes says "According to statistics cited by CITY officials." Does saying it's only a small town help them dismiss its results as insignificant?

They say "interpretation of this decline is open to question" which is again untrue. How can unbiased interpretation of an enormous - 79% - decline be "open to question"?

Conclusion: the whole Report is a Deliberate Hatchet Job

Despite Kennesaw's 79% decrease in violent crime sustained over a thirty year period, Englander and Snell untruthfully dismiss the obvious by concluding it's "difficult to gauge the long-term consequences of enforced gun ownership." A blatant lie which dramatically confirms the obvious: Their supposedly unbiased report is actually a deceitfully well-written and highly misleadingly hatchet job. Five pinocchios!

Food for Thought

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th president of the USA.

"In the last few years, the very idea of telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is dredged up only as a final resort when the alternative options of deception, threat and bribery have all been exhausted."

- Michael Musto, Italian American journalist, former columnist for The Village Voice and theater critic for the Columbia Spectator

Average deaths in a shooting rampage when stopped by police: 14.3. But average deaths when stopped by civilians: far less - just 2.3.

So discourage violent criminals and terrorists from attacking your people. Encourage your qualified, law-abiding citizens to be able to defend themselves, their family and their property. Both concealed carry as well as the discretionary ordinance are entirely optional - there's no penalty and they're exempt from complying if they object for any reason at all!

Despite media misunderstanding and much misrepresentation, Universal Gun Ownership is not coercive, it's neither Mandatory Gun Ownership nor Compulsory Gun Ownership. It's simply a choice to be prepared to defend themselves and their loved ones from a violent criminal in advance...